“As I think about this issue, I remember a meeting in which our art editor told the staff about a French phrase she recently discovered.

‘Espirt de l’escalier,’ she said in an Americanized French accent. Literally translated, the phrase means ‘staircase-wit,’ as if someone were able to come to a conclusion after traveling floors of ideas…

The staff wondered: is artwork the artist’s espirt de l’escalier? This question provokes the issue’s theme.”

Lori Wilson, EIC